The Trials, Stories, and Photographs of a New York City Writer, Photojournalist & New York Yellow Taxi Hack...bringing you the New York City stories he reports which have crowned him The King of New York Hacks.

Strange objects travel these streets at night...along with The King. ;-P

Dark Knight...Sometimes, this city IS Gotham...Empire State Building last night. Batman is in the fog signaling to The King that all is well...stay safe Batman, The King is around tonight.

The King is the only one traveling home at this hour... in the heart of NYC...Times Square...and the escalator that leads to only one place...and that place is...The Stairway to Heaven. :-)

I may not be Spock, Marilyn, The Joker...I know Batman personally, and I've shared M&M's with Herman Munster...No, No, I'm not delusional, just trying to be wordless...but one person I know can never be without a word or speechless,... and that dude is... The King Of New York Hacks. Peace out peeps.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Well we left off part one with the little Dutch girl walking down the stairs in her wooden shoes...so I guess its appropriate to start off part two with the Dutch Band Kleintje Pils (Half a Lager) from the town of Sassenheim playing one of their folk songs, they also played at the Olympics this year...AND they wear wooden shoes !!!! Its 2 minutes.

This I found interesting because although this festival was on a day that they used to have Memorials for 9/11, an artist who created a Panoramic drawing on a continuous piece of paper, kind of like a high quality paper towel that you'd wipe your hands with at a public bathroom...had her work on display and was also drawing people's requests.

The panoramic drawing was created by Amsterdam artist Corina Teunissen van Mannen in 1990, and The King thought it would be a brilliant idea to compare her drawings with the real thing, except the pics are from 1987.

I am grateful for my very dear friend Frank Zachary Cassano who gave me permission to use these photos from 1987, and they are brilliant.

Frank Zachary Cassano has been a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize and is also a noted food critic and photographer for various sources of information with a specialty in Chinese Cuisine from Chinatown, Sunset Park Brooklyn, to the maritime meals of New England. Frank worked on the 81st floor while The King worked in the smaller World Trade Center building number 4 on the 7th and 8th floors ( which 8th being the top floor ) which were the Comex and Nymex exchange back then..Thanks for the pics brother, they are great.

So take a look and judge for yourselves...I found the comparisons eerie being that the view of the city I and Frank knew everday, is sadly no longer there.

Order from the artist a piece of the skyline who you will see in a bit using the beer wagon... and, what really looks like a paper towel roll from an office or restaurant bathroom...LOL ..only artists would think of that...although a girl wrote a nice note to me on toilet paper once.

The entire drawing was protected in plastic and wrapped around a downtown park that led to the festival. There was no security , and nobody messed with it at all...New York gets a bad rap sometimes....now if it was left there overnight, it would be graffiti the next day no doubt !! HA !

Plane flying by The Empire State building 1990...Small aircraft have to take different routes since Cory Lidle of The New York Yankees flew his small plane into an apartment complex in 2006. R.I.P Cory.

The Empire State Building view from The Twin Towers 81st floor in 1987.~Frank Zachary Cassano

Empire State Building at night Summer, 2010.~The King

Twin Towers view 1990 approaching from the Staten Island side on the Staten Island Ferry.

Twin Towers view approaching from the Staten Island side on the Staten Island Ferry.1987~Frank Zachary Cassano

The Statue of Liberty 1990

Statue of Liberty 2010, still standing strong.

Side view The Twin Towers. 1990

Side view The Twin towers from 1987~Frank Zachary Cassano

Manhattan Bridge Drawing 1990

Manhattan Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge 1987 view from east side of the 81st floor of The WTC.~Frank Zachary Cassano

Wow...great shot Frank.

Chrysler Building drawing 1990 ....The King's favorite building in this city.

Chrysler Building summer night 2010...STILL The King's favorite building in this city.

Corinna Teunissan van Mannen ready to draw any scene of the city on her roll of paper on request !! No you can't dry your hands with this roll !!!

Smiling and taking requests, she was a delight, and was very knowledgeable of all the famous and not so famous buildings that she drew in 1990...she was also very emotional about the fact that The Twin Towers are gone...it was a part of her like all her art she told me.

The King bows to her talent, and her return to the city she drew from all angles in 1990, thanks Corina...and keep smiling.

The newly proposed New York City Taxi Hack uniform...I voted on the one with blue suspenders !!...but I refuse to wear the bonnet !!! LMAO

Lilies...they really do know how to cultivate their flowers as you can see.

Back of Windmill...This is where they sold knock offs of wooden shoes !! HaHa !!

Bumblebee cycle...which are very important for the flowers that they need, and are a huge part of their economics.

The Honey comb growing

Overview

The King holding over 100, 000 baby bees ...and didn't even get stung...RESPECT DA KING !!

Kids were amazed as they watched the bees safely.

They have a green movement across the pond to make your roof into grass...certain roofs would collapse in a rainfall, so they would have to install support beams too I was told...Whoa. Can you imagine, "Honey time to go on the roof and cut the lawn"..." No problem Hun, divorce papers in the top drawer !! " LOL Landscapers would be paid nicely I would imagine...or be in scarce supply.

More Raw fish , no rolls this time...The King downed one. With a sour cream and chive sauce... Slurp !! Not the tail though ! Wasn't that bad...I should have filmed this for the food channel !

This dude went right to the tail as well, but chucked the tail into the garbage.

And there ya have it folks , just another hour or so in this crazy city when you never know where you might wind up...as I did in Holland this day.

In 1626, the settlement of New Amsterdam was established at the mouth of the Hudson River. Peter Minuit, director general of the company, purchased all of Manhattan Island from the local natives for 60 Dutch guilders, which some have calculated to equal $24...

About the cost of a cab ride from Queens into Manhattan...and I haven't been able to sell the Brooklyn Bridge to NOBODY !!!! ..Damn that dude was good !! He'd probably would work for Goldman Sachs or Barclays today !! HaHa !!...anyhow...

Dutch villages of Haarlem and Breukelen would later become the New York neighborhood Harlem and the Borough of Brooklyn...Things have come a long way...just as you and I have come a long way through this long blog...who knows what New York City has to bring in the future or the buildings and neighborhoods that will change and what they will look like ???

....but I will tell you who is watching, and will be the first to post about it...no, no , not a Dutchman...although I did the "Dutch Shuffle" after eating all that raw fish ;-)...I have been through the Holland Tunnel many more than 400 times...and have traveled up Amsterdam Ave EVERY time I driven my Taxi... wait for it...wait for it....That's right baby !!!

The King Of New York Hacks !! Thanks for riding along, hope you enjoyed the ride.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

This was the festival I saw before 9/11 last year that I told you I would write about...They were celebrating 400 years of The Dutch being such a huge part of how this city evolved...So here is part one...Hope you like it.

New Amsterdam (Dutch: Nieuw-Amsterdam) was a 17th-century Dutch colonial settlement that served as the capital of New Netherland. It later became New York City.

"We're gonna need A LOT of fucking windmills and maybe a few hamsters in the wheels to power this city now" King Of New York Hacks said from his moving yellow office on Park Ave..."

"This city should be ashamed going back to stealing all the people's money, like they did 400 years ago, 300 years ago, hell even in the last six months !! Forward progress would be nice" Citation, ...yes I've had a few. ;-)

The Royal Netherlands Navy were a friendly bunch and I chatted with them as a lot of people took advantage of taking pictures with them...I asked them how is their time here going... and they told me they loved New York City and were surprised at how welcome they felt here and people were very generous towards them. I told them to drive my Taxi for an hour and then answer my same question...we laughed..The universal language. They certainly were making a lot of kids happy that day. Good job RNN !!

They had a set up so you could be in the famous painting "The Milkmaid" by Vermeer...Now, had Vermeer painted that dude on the left or right in the painting... or even the King, that painting would not be famous today....although I would hang it in my kitchen. ;P

Johannes Vermeer-The Milkmaid (De Melkmeid or Het Melkmeisje), sometimes called The Kitchen Maid, is an oil-on-canvas painting of a "milkmaid", in fact a domestic kitchen maid, by the Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer. It is housed in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Netherlands, which esteems it as "unquestionably one of the museum's finest attractions".

Girl With a Pearl Earring (1665), is also considered a Vermeer masterpiece which they made a movie about with Scarlett Johansson.

Here is a replica of the masterpiece on display for all to see...without me or the other dudes in it...Thank God. LOL

I really felt like I was on a small street in The Netherlands...They made it look genuine.

DE TULP...meaning "The Tulip"...The Netherlands famous for its cultivated tulips is one of the most dominant exporting countries of tulips and tulip bulbs.

Now this was interesting, a Johannes Vermeers look-a-like selling seeds and bulbs for all different prices which reminded me of "Tulipmania" which was probably similar to the dot com boom and bust.

This occurred in 1636-1637 while 1 out of every 7 people were dying of the bubonic plague and felt to speculate and profit as quickly and successfully of the trading of Tulips. If the Tulip had a stripe in it, it may have traded its weight in gold being that it was unique to other Tulips, when the stripe really was a virus attacking the bulb...Sounds like a Black Tulip was an etoys.com or a Cream colored one a Pets.com...either way, it was a HUGE bust !!!

I stayed away from this dude, he wasn't going to fool me with any of this bullshit again !! Tulips costing their weight in gold ??? All I have to say to that is Pffffffftttt the Tulip !!!

Now, this is more like it, as I was talking to the girl in the poster who had set out some flowers and a bottle of wine for the King, I asked her if I could put those flowers on my piano and she replied enthusiastically in her Dutch accent " Neen, Neen, King, How vould you like Tulips on your organ instead ?? "... O_O "You had me at Neen" I said. LMAO

Watching the craftsman carve out wooden shoes of all sizes amazed me as he explained they would last me a lifetime and that they were great for garden use...just hose off when you're done. Not quite sure if I could drive with these on my feet and he actually told me he puts steel in the tip on request...Nice to know if I ever need to kick a passenger in the balls for a tip !!

Old beer wagon with name brand Beer Old New Amsterdam...An artist will use this wagon to draw in in part two.

Expensive too !! $7 bucks for Herring on a bun ??? The King tried one, sans the bun...very salty but the sauce was good.

Funny how the hat resembles the fast food workers hats of today, some things never change.

And equal opportunity prevails as the ladies are as hard at work as the men...these weree being sold out faster than they could make them !!

Poffertjes look like tiny/small pancakes, but they are much sweeter. They're fluffier than American pancakes because of the yeast. In contrast with pancakes, poffertjes are turned before one side is completely done, which results in a much softer core than pancakes have. Typically, poffertjes are served with powdered sugar and butter. $5 bucks for 8...The King is in !!

Preparing my and many others orders...I have seen a similar item for sale in Chinatown except a lot smaller and served with creme inside.

Perfect batch...OK...Hand them over now !!

Ahhhhh perfect...powdered sugur and a buttery cream topping that I put on just a bit...they were delicious !!! They should have a few vendors selling these year round !! Good stuff !!

These delicious Caramel Cookie Waffles or Syrup Waffle (called Stroopwafels by the Dutch) with richly filled chewy centers are one of Holland's true specialties. My Grandmother was Italian and we had similar cookies but they were called pizzelle cookies..Just as tasty, but Nana's had more love in it which made it even more tastier. Sorry Stroopwafels. The King did enjoy them though.

"Hoi, goede middag !! ...How about some Stroopwafels and wooden shoe shopping ladies ???"Ladies ???...oh well can't have good luck all the time like I did with the Tulip girl. ;-)

Traditional children dress male...with wooden shoes.

Traditional children dress female...with wooden shoes.

...and this precious little girl was the real thing and so proud of her pretty dress as she wowed everyone on stage !

Here the little doll demonstrates just how hard it is to walk down stairs in those clogs !!

So in closing, I hope you enjoyed part one of my little diversion from the city within the city that used to be the city...I am not Dutch, have been through The Holland tunnel at least 400 times if that counts for anything, have eaten their delicacies and was happy to meet many kind people that day as I was then and am now, until part two...The King of New York Hacks. Vrede uit vreders...or as I will say for you non Dutch speakers, Peace out peepers, stay safe out there.

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The King Of New York Hacks

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